Lightened Ukrainian mac and cheese

Ukrainian mac and cheese: a rich and cheesy comfort food pasta dish -- with bacon! -- that's lightened, guilt-free and easy enough for a busy weeknight. 

I'm not even going to get into, yet again, how much of a pasta addict I am. But I'm starting to wonder if I'm actually more of a comfort food addict -- and most of my favorite comfort foods are pasta dishes?

Either way, I've got an amazing double whammy for you today. Ukrainian mac and cheese, which is comfort food pasta that I'm completely cray cray about right now.

And there's bacon in it.

Yep, the food world may be scoffing at bacon, calling it "so over", but, for the true bacon fan, BACON WILL NEVER BE OVER. (Can I get an amen or a hellz yeah?!)

But never fear: This Ukranian mac and cheese is also a lightened recipe, so you don't have to feel guilty about digging into all the rich, cheesey goodness.

And speaking of cheesiness, the only cheese in this mac and cheese is cottage cheese, giving it less of an ooey-gooey cheesiness and more of a rich and creamy cheesiness.

Why Ukrainian? Well, the recipe I adapted it from calls for lokshyna, which are Ukrainian egg noodles. Given that I have no bloody idea where I'd find something like that, I simply used whole-wheat egg noodles but kept the Ukrainian nomenclature as a nod to its origins.

Booyah: We're getting all international over here, aren't we?

Boozy maple bacon jam

Boozy maple bacon jam. Yes, you heard me right.

This is my second post this week in which I think the title says it all and if I didn't write another word about it but instead simply gave you the recipe, you'd be perfectly happy.

I'm an advocate of homecooking for healthier eating and, more importantly, eating real food rather than prepackaged, only-microwave-cooking-required crap that is full of chemicals (and yes, I'm not perfect and occasionally indulge in Nutella but I also haven't eaten a bite of fast food in five years).

Luckily, bacon is real food, as regular readers know that I have a weakness for it and tend to throw a bit of it into nearly everything (including bacon oatmeal cookies -- yes, I went there). And I refuse to jump on the bacon-is-so-last-year bandwagon (freakin' hipsters, raining on my parade).

Yet you may notice that I haven't been packing on the bacon recipes much in 2014 (there's actually only been one, can you believe it?). Time to rectify that.

Happily, Katie from Healthy Seasonal Recipes invited me to take part in her Pure Maple link party to celebrate maple season -- and we all know that nothing goes better with maple syrup than bacon (well, I hope you know this -- it's a fact). And, even though the sap is running here in Vermont, it's still freakin' cold and snowy, so why not throw in a little bourbon to warm us all up?

(Bacon is never made worse by the addition of bourbon. This is another fact.)

Oooh! I can't believe I haven't yet mentioned the best part: you can make this boozy maple bacon jam in the slow cooker.

Slow cooker mac and cheese with bacon and tomatoes

Today I'm going to start with a little math equation. But this is food math, so you're going to love it.

If a = I love me some mac and cheese and b = I am lazy, then a + b = slow cooker mac and cheese.

See? Food math is awesome!

The problem with some crockpot mac and cheese recipes is that they get all burned around the edges, which, frankly, is a huge letdown. This one is the exception. The texture and consistency is the same as oven-baked mac and cheese, plus the edges get nicely browned but don't char.

Plus, there's no pre-cooking of sauce or anything like that. I generally shun crockpot recipes that require you to pre-cook ingredients (read: dirty a bunch of other pans and defeat the throw-it-all-in-and-walk-out-the-door simplicity of the crockpot).

(Aside: You may notice that I use the terms "crockpot" and "slow cooker" interchangeably -- this is because, based on an informal survey I conducted on my Facebook page, so do you and I want to make sure all of you are happy. Because that's the kind of Ninj I am.)

Being the Ninj, I just had to mess around with the recipe a bit, though. You know, by throwing some bacon into it, for which I am developing a bit of a reputation. But I also added some tomatoes, which cooked down beautifully and added a little extra zing, while also making it a great one-pot dinner.

Pasta with butternut squash, broccoli and cranberry beans (guest post)

Hello fellow Ninja followers. Let me introduce myself. I am Sandra, and today we get to hang out together here in Julianne’s space. She was awesome enough to play a little blogger switch with me. That’s right, I am a fellow food blogger, but also a huge fan of The Ninj. I don’t have to tell you why she is so awesome because you frequent here regularly, too. The Ninj and I happened to connect the way most bloggers do, by chance. I quickly learned how cool she is by reading through a bunch of her recipes I found out we had a lot in common.

We like to cook. We like to can. We like to have fun. Not every food blogger is fun, believe me I know. We live a few states away, I’m in New Jersey, but I wish I lived in Vermont. I guess that doesn’t count. If we lived closer I’d like to think we would be friends that would hang out every so often. Hang out in a sense that I would raid her orchards the second she went grocery shopping. Like all good friends do, right? Seriously the Ninj is not only awesome, she is “I have fruit trees in my orchard” awesome! (I’d hit up the cherry tree first, who’s with me?)

Liz's quiche

Regular readers are probably pretty surprised to see me touting quiche because I've long claimed to be a crust hater.

I think I should have clarified. I really only dislike that thick crust edge and when a pie has a top crust. Most people would argue that that's pretty much the whole crust, right? Which is why I always say that I hate crust.

But as long as I'm the one doing the cooking, I can make pies or quiches without a top crust and give the fluted edge to Mr. Ninj. Problem solved.

So I guess I'm back on the crust bandwagon. Especially with an easy, whirl-it-up-in-the-foodprocessor crust recipe (see below).

This quiche, however, is about more than its crust. This quiche has history.

This quiche is one of the first things I ever cooked -- when I was seventeen years old.

Smoky bacon cheddar maple bacon beer bread

Smoky bacon cheddar maple bacon beer bread: booya.

Beer bread ... with maple ... and bacon ... and cheese ... cheese that also has smoky bacon in it.

Really, I thought that I likely wouldn't even need to write a post to go along with the photo and the recipe.

But it's a good story...

On a drive home to Vermont from Boston a few weeks ago, we stopped for dinner at the Seven Barrel Brewery in West Lebanon, NH. Our waiter, Fred, who was a complete hoot, gave us a taste of their new Maple Ale, brewed on site with local New Hampshire maple syrup.

You know how you go to these microbreweries and they're serving their special, seasonal Cherry Prune Tangerine Yeasty Goodness or whatever and it tastes nothing like cherries, prunes or tangerines, only yeast?

This was not one of those. Honestly, I could taste the maple.

Smoky corn chowder

Smoky corn chowder

I love happy accidents, don't you?

Or maybe you call it fate, karma, coincidence, being in the right place at the right time, or whatever.

It's still good stuff.

This corn chowder falls into just such a category. Here's the story.

I happened to mention on Facebook that it was my dogs' birthday (yes, they share the same one, four years apart, despite the fact that they are both rescues -- cool, no?) and that I was making them a meatloaf (yep, everyone eats well in this house). A friend messaged me and asked if it was people-appropriate and, if so, would I share the recipe. Suffice it to say that the dogs' meatloaf, while made with people-friendly ingredients, is a bit too bland for most humans, so I offered to send her my regular meatloaf recipe (which is awesome -- I'll blog about it at some point).

In the string of emails that ensued, my friend mentioned that she was making a corn chowder for dinner. I thought that sounded lovely so, in the spirit of recipe swapping, I asked if she would send the chowder recipe to me. She did and included her adaptations as well.

Although corn season has passed for another year (we miss you already!), I fortunately had some shucked frozen kernels in the freezer (store-bought frozen corn would work just as well, too), so I decided to give the chowder a whirl.

(And the fact that the recipe called for a bunch of bacon of course didn't hurt.)

Chocolate ice cream with candied bacon bits (and no ice cream maker)

Chocolate ice cream with candied bacon bits

Believe it or not, this is my 200th post. Yowza.

That's 200 things I've cooked and shared with you ... at least 200 photos -- not all good, but still ... and 200 (well, probably 5000) smart-assed comments about food -- not all good, but still.

So what better way to celebrate than with ice cream? With candied bacon in it.

Yes, my friends, candied bacon. As if bacon alone wasn't enough.

(I think Job 1 this weekend is to re-make the bacon oatmeal cookies with candied bacon, don't you agree?)

Before we get too far down the candied bacon road, let me emphasize that this post is really about making ice cream without an ice cream machine. Really, it is.

For a while now, I've been debating about whether or not I need an ice cream maker. On the pro side: ice cream -- yummy goodness. On the con side: ice cream -- yummy fatness. We don't really need a whole lot more yummy fatness around here.

I am torn.

Wicked mac and cheese: a recipe

Cheddary mac and cheese, with sun-dried tomatoes, bacon and other good stuff

I read recently that a surefire way to lose unwanted pounds and feel a bit better is to eliminate rice and pasta from your diet.


No ... more ... PASTA?

Well, spare tire, unless hell freezes over, looks like you're here to stay.

I realize this is the second pasta dish I'm highlighting this week but sometimes that's just the way it goes. There will be something sweet soon, I promise.

And you can't be too upset with mac and cheese, really. As I'm fond of saying, this is one of those don't-waste-it-on-picky-children dishes, an adult mac and cheese, loaded with all sorts of colored, non-bland foods that today's kids bitch about: ham, bacon, green onion, sun-dried tomatoes. Oh yeah, and stinky blue cheese.

Simply put: wicked awesome.

Cabbage, ham and mushroom galette: a recipe

Cabbage, ham and mushroom galette with horseradish cream

Not a big fan of cabbage? Neither am I.

For years, my association with cabbage has been the overcooked corned beef and cabbage dinner served in bulk at the annual St. Patrick's Day dinner and fete that our local church held (and that my parents forced me attend, even as a sullen teenager) while I was growing up.

I'm not sure which was worse, the soggy brown cabbage or the band of non-Irish locals in plaid pants playing "Danny Boy". (I believe the pipes were calling those pants back home, stat.)

Yeah, you would have bad cabbage flashbacks, too.

Bacon oatmeal cookies: a recipe

Bacon oatmeal cookies

Yep, bacon cookies.

Read it again: Bacon. Cookies.

Your eyes are not deceiving you.

Now check outside to make sure this isn't the rapture or anything, because these cookies are purt-near cookie perfection. If you thought the salted oatmeal cookies were wicked, hold on to your hat.

In the words of Mr. Ninj, "These cookies are an EVENT!"

Regular readers know that it tends to be pork-o-palooza around here (love me some sausage!), so of course I've been thrilled to see bacon showing up as the new new thing in many of the recipe magazines. Bacon martinis, bacon lollipops, bacon ice cream ... why not bacon cookies?

As with the salted oatmeal cookies, don't waste these on children (if you give one to a child and s/he says, "Eeew, raisins!" or anything like that, I will personally travel to your house to smack you). These are grown-up treats, with that oh-so-hard-to-attain balance of sweet and savory, soft and crunchy.

Onion bisque: a recipe

Onion bisque

Despite the lack of snow here in Vermont, it's cold enough to still qualify as soup season. 

And we have a real winner here.

Onion bisque: I think the best way to describe it would be that it's like fancy-shmancy pureed french onion soup.

Clearly "onion bisque" was a classier name choice.

This recipe comes from Bon Appetit. The magazine runs a column in each issue in which readers write in, seeking their favorite restaurant recipes, in order to try to re-create them at home. I love this feature because I get not only some great recipes but also some excellent ideas for where to eat when I travel.

The onion bisque recipe is one that Chef Justin Devillier makes at La Petite Grocery in New Orleans. (Pfft, like there is any bad place to eat in NOLA, really).

Onion and bacon tart: a recipe

Onion and bacon tart

You know it's getting to be holiday time when I allow myself to cook with bacon fat. A lot of bacon fat.

Regular readers will know that we start out the year with a little something we call Detox January, to get off on the right foot. So healthy! But somehow a downward spiral begins after that, gaining a little more momentum each month without my realizing it, until December rolls around and I have no qualms making a dish that swims in bacon fat.

But it's a lovely bacony dish, fat and all.

You wouldn't think that a dish with so few ingredients (besides bacon fat) could be so amazing. Really, it's just bacon, onions and a flour-egg-milk batter.

But it is.

Beer-and-cheddar soup: a recipe

Beer-and-cheddar soup

One of the things I love about fall and the weather turning cooler is that soup is back in the recipe rotation.

Not that I don't enjoy summer soups, such as gazapacho or fresh tomato bisque, but the hot-and-hearty soups of fall and winter are pure comfort food.

And speaking of pure comfort, howzabout a beer-and-cheddar soup?

Beer-and-cheese soup recipes probably fall into the same category as homemade pasta sauce: every family has one and each thinks its is the best. So I'm not claiming this is the best-ever, ultimate, cheesiest or what have you: it's just the one that came across my path via the November issue of Food and Wine magazine.

But I had to modify it a bit, just to be able to live with myself.

I admit, I love cheese. And bacon. And cream. And beer. But when a recipe calls for all of those, in large quantities, together in one dish, I get a little scared. It's the Cooking Light devotee in me, I guess; I'd rather not be responsible for serving a stroke-on-a-plate (or in this case, in a bowl) to my family.

Fiddlehead pie: a recipe

Making this pie was not as exhausting as it might seem...

It's really a quiche but I had to call it a pie because, according to the recipe:

This is called a pie and not a quiche because Vermonters do not eat quiche.

Well, alrighty then ... pie it is.

A little background: Fiddleheads are actually the unfurled frond of a fern, which looks very much like the curled end of a violin. While they may be found on different varieties of edible ferns all over the world (they are especially beloved in France, I'm told), they are traditional in Northern New England (Maine, more specifically), as well as in Quebec and the Maritimes in Canada.

Full disclosure: I am a New Englandah but this is my first experience with fiddleheads. I did not grow up in a very food-adventurous household and, when interesting local foods became chic and cool, I was long gone to the South, where I learned about things like okra (bleeeeeck), collards (yum yum) and grits (best with sausage and cheese).

So, being back home in New England now, I figured I had to give fiddleheads a try this year to see what all the fuss is about.

Baked bacon: tip and technique

Bacon! The photo is a little too pink but you get the idea.

In my world, everything is better with some crumbled bacon.

And I have the blessing of Mark Bittman, so I'm justified.

In his Food Matters Cookbook, Bittman presents many of the recipes in their vegetarian form but also offers suggestions for protein add-ins if, like Mr. Ninj, dinner isn't dinner without some meat -- it's just lunch. And the recommended add-in, more often than not, is bacon. (I heart Bittman, don't you?)

So imagine my joy when I stumbled across a technique in a recent issue of Cooking Light for baked bacon. It ... is ... WICKED!

Here's how you do it: